The present invention generally provides devices, compositions of matter, kits, systems, and methods for detecting and identifying a plurality of spectrally labeled bodies. In a particular embodiment, the invention provides systems and methods for detecting and identifying a plurality of spectral codes generated by such bodies, especially for measuring the results of high-throughput bead-based assay systems, and the like. The invention will often use labeled beads which generate identifiable spectra that include a number of discreet signals having measurable characteristics, such as wavelength and/or intensity.
Tracking the locations and/or identities of a large number of items can be challenging in many settings. Barcode technology in general, and the Universal Product Code in particular, has provided huge benefits for tracking a variety of objects. Barcode technologies often use a linear array of elements printed either directly on an object or on labels which may be affixed to the object. These barcode elements often comprise bars and spaces, with the bars having varying widths to represent strings of binary ones, and the spaces between the bars having varying widths to represent strings of binary zeros.
Barcodes can be detected optically using devices such as scanning laser beams or handheld wands. Similar barcode schemes can be implemented in magnetic media. The scanning systems often electro-optically decode the label to determine multiple alphanumerical characters that are intended to be descriptive of (or otherwise identify) the article or its character. These barcodes are often presented in digital form as an input to a data processing system, for example, for use in point-of-sale processing, inventory control, and the like.
Barcode techniques such as the Universal Product Code have gained wide acceptance, and a variety of higher density alternatives also have been proposed. Unfortunately, these standard barcodes are often unsuitable for labeling many “libraries” or groupings of elements. For example, small items such as jewelry or minute electrical components may lack sufficient surface area for convenient attachment of the barcode. Similarly, emerging technologies such as combinatorial chemistry, genomics research, microfluidics, potential pharmaceutical screening, micromachines, and other nanoscale technologies do not appear well-suited for supporting known, relatively large-scale barcode labels. In many of these developing fields, it is often desirable to make use of large numbers of compounds within a fluid, and identifying and tracking the movements of such fluids using existing barcodes is particularly problematic. While a few chemical encoding systems for chemicals and fluids have been proposed, reliable and accurate labeling of large numbers of small and/or fluid elements remains a challenge.
Small scale and fluid labeling capabilities have recently advanced radically with the suggested application of semiconductor nanocrystals (also known as Q-Dot™ particles), as detailed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/397,432, the full disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. Semiconductor nanocrystals are microscopic particles having size-dependent optical and/or electromagnetic emission properties. As the band gap energy of such semiconductor nanocrystals vary with a size, coating and/or material of the crystal, populations of these crystals can be produced having a variety of spectral emission characteristics. Furthermore, the intensity of the emission of a particular wavelength can be varied, thereby enabling the use of a variety of encoding schemes. A spectral label defined by a combination of semiconductor nanocrystals having differing emission signals can be identified from the characteristics of the spectrum emitted by the label when the semiconductor nanocrystals are energized.
A particularly promising application for semiconductor nanocrystals is in multiplexed and/or high-throughput assay systems. Multiplexed assay formats would be highly desirable for improved throughput capability, and to match the demands that combinatorial chemistry is putting on established discovery and validation systems for pharmaceuticals. For example, simultaneous elucidation of complex protein patterns may allow detection of rare events or conditions, such as cancer. In addition, the ever-expanding repertoire of genomic information would benefit from very efficient, parallel and inexpensive assay formats. Desirable multiplexed assay characteristics may include ease of use, reliability of results, a high-throughput format, and extremely fast and inexpensive assay development and execution.
A number of known assay formats may currently be employed for high-throughput testing. Each of these formats has limitations, however. By far the most dominant high-throughput technique is based on the separation of different assays into different regions of space. The 96-well plate format is the workhorse in this arena.
In 96-well plate assays, the individual wells (which are isolated from each other by walls) are often charged with different components, and the assay is performed and then the assay result in each well measured. The information about which assay is being run is carried with the well number or the position on the plate, and the result at the given position determines which assays are positive. These assays can be based on chemiluminescence, scintillation, fluorescence, scattering, or absorbance/colorimetric measurements, and the details of the detection scheme depend on the reaction being assayed.
Multi-well assays have been reduced in size to enhance throughput, for example, to accommodate 384 or 1536 wells per plate. Unfortunately, the fluid delivery and evaporation of the assay solution at this scale are significantly more confounding to the assays. High-throughput formats based on multi-well arraying often rely on complex robotics and fluid dispensing systems to function optimally. The dispensing of the appropriate solutions to the appropriate bins on the plate poses a challenge from both an efficiency and a contamination standpoint, and pains must be taken to optimize the fluidics for both properties. Furthermore, the throughput is ultimately limited by the number of wells that one can put adjacent on a plate, and the volume of each well. Arbitrarily small wells may have arbitrarily small volumes, resulting in a signal that scales with the volume, shrinking proportionally with the cube of the radius. Nonetheless the spatial isolation of each well, and thereby each assay, has been much more common than running multiple assays in a single well. Such single-well multiplexing techniques are not widely used, due in large part to the difficulty in “demultiplexing” or resolving the results of the different assays in a single well.
For even higher throughput genomic and genetic analysis techniques, positional array technology has been shrunk to microscopic scales, often using high-density oligonucleotide arrays. Over a 1-cm square of glass, tens to hundreds of thousands of different nucleotides can be written in, for example, 25-.mu.m spots, which are well resolved from each other. On this planar test structure or “chip,” which is emblazoned with an alignment grid, a particular spot's x, y position determines which oligonucleotide is present at that spot. Typically 3′- or 5′-labeled amplified DNA is added to the array, hybridized and is then detected using fluorescence-based techniques. Although this is a very powerful technique for assaying a large number of genetic markers simultaneously, the cost is still very high, and the flexibility of this assay is limited.
Once the masks have been written for the photolithographic process that builds the particular DNA sequences into a particular location on the chip, they are fixed and the addition thereto of new markers comes at a very high price. The extremely small feature size, and the highly parallel assay format, comes at the cost of the flexibility inherent in a common platform system such as the 96-well plates. In addition, the assay is ultimately performed at the surface of the chip, and the results depend on the kinetics of the hybridization to the surface, a process that is negatively influenced by steric issues and diffusion issues. In fact, small microarray chips are not particularly suited to the detection of rare events, as the diffusion of the solution over the chip may not be sufficiently thorough. In order to perform the hybridizations to the microarray chips more efficiently, a dedicated fluidics workstation can be used to pump the solution over the surface of the chip repeatedly; such instruments add cost and time to execution of the assay.
The use of spectral barcodes holds great promise for enhancing the throughput of assays, as described in an application entitled “Semiconductor Nanocrystal Probes for Biological Applications and Process for Making and Using such Probes,” U.S. application Ser. No. 09/259,982 filed Mar. 1, 1999, the full disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. Multiplexed assays may be performed using a number of probes which include both a spectral label (often in the form of several semiconductor nanocrystals) and one or more moieties. The moieties may be capable of selectively bonding to one or more detectable substances within a sample fluid, while the spectral labels can be used to identify the probe within the fluid (and hence the associated moiety). As the individual probes can be quite small, and as the number of spectral codes which can be independently identified can be quite large, large numbers of individual assays might be performed within a single fluid sample by including a large number of differing probes. These probes may take the form of quite small beads, with each bead optionally including a spectral label, a moiety, and a bead body or matrix, often in the form of a polymer. The reaction times and rare event identification accuracy of such beads may be quite advantageous, particularly when the beads are free-floating within a fluid, without being affixed to a surface.
Together with their substantial advantages, there will be significant challenges in implementing multiplexed, spectrally encoded bead-based assay techniques. In particular, determining multiplexed assay results by accurately reading each spectral barcode and/or assay result from within a fluid may prove quite problematic.
In light of the above, it would generally be desirable to provide improved systems and methods for sensing and identifying signal generating bodies. It would be particularly beneficial if these improved techniques facilitated the identification of a plurality of spectral codes generated by bodies disposed within and/or exposed to a fluid. To take advantage of the potential capabilities of spectral coding of multiplexed assay probes, it would be highly desirable if these enhanced techniques allowed detection and/or identification of large numbers of spectral codes and/or other signals in a repeatably, highly time efficient manner, while providing improved flexibility, ease of use, rare event/condition detection, and/or accuracy.